Tag Archives: Healthcare Reform

Since the ignominious failure of the Obamacare repeal effort, President Trump has been lashing out at the Republican House Freedom Caucus on Twitter. “The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast,” he tweeted in a remarkable threat to members of his own party. President Trump’s frustration with legislative obstruction overlooks the fact that that obstruction is itself one of the greatest strengths of the American system of government.

The beauty of the American system is that it enables not only members of opposition or minority parties like today’s congressional Democrats, but also members of governing or majority parties, to curb executive power. What happened last month was an example of that phenomenon. Unlike the way things work in British-style parliamentary systems like that of my home country of Canada, with their fusion of the executive and legislative branches of government, Congress is elected separately from the president. Members of both chambers of Congress are accountable primarily to their constituents at the ballot box rather than to party leaders.

Republicans in the House were thus free to resist whatever pressure the Trump White House and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan exerted on them to vote for the American Health Care Act (AHCA). Contrary to the president’s incensed tweets, the AHCA went down to defeat not only thanks to the House Freedom Caucus, but also thanks to the so-called “Coverage Caucus” of more cautious Republicans who balked at the prospect of depriving millions of their constituents of health insurance. Freedom Caucus members and their allies refused to support the bill because it was not enough of a departure from the Affordable Care Act for them; “Coverage Caucus” Republicans opposed it because, in effect, it was too much of a departure from Obamacare.

Young Voices Director Fred Roeder has been published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writing about the benefits of competition and private initiative in healthcare. Fred illustrates the benefits of competition and free enterprise with examples of private healthcare from Singapore, Germany, Slovakia, and Georgia. He argues that private healthcare curbs healthcare costs without having any negative impact on patients’ health outcomes.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has a circulation of 382,000 as of January 2013. It is the German newspaper with the widest circulation abroad delivering the newspaper to 148 countries every day

If you’d like to speak with or book Fred or any of our other Advocates, please contact Young Voices now.